Clarification on cryptoassets taxation in France

On April 26th, 2018, the Supreme Administrative Court ("Conseil d'Etat"), clarified prior instructions from the tax administrations.
In 2014 the tax administration had presented capital gains from bitcoin as either industrial and commercial benefits if they were resulting from a professionnal trading activity or non commercial benefits if they were occasional207. The Supreme Administrative Court cancel those tax instructions and consider that capital gains for non professional activities should fall under the more favorable regime of capital gains resulting from the disposal of movable assets. However, if the crypotocurrencies were obtained as a reward for “contributing to the creation or the operations of the system of virtual units of account”. decision